


Untangling the Threads

by Morrigu Raven (Ravens_in_the_Library)



Series: Yu Yu Hakusho - Tangled Threads of Fate [1]
Category: Gargoyles (Cartoon), 幽☆遊☆白書 | YuYu Hakusho: Ghost Files
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:53:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28825512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravens_in_the_Library/pseuds/Morrigu%20Raven
Summary: Untangling the Threads is intended as a Compendium, a repository of knowledge that associates with the Series that Tangled Threads of Fate encompasses. This story has a variety of unique takes on an alternative to popular fandom interpretations. You'll find a lot of information that essentially covers the series as a whole, and will have updates that match up to things within the writing that may need to be answered with more in-depth Out of Character notations than a simple chapter note!
Series: Yu Yu Hakusho - Tangled Threads of Fate [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052627
Kudos: 1





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> Note, like most of the series this will cover a series of very difficult topics, sometimes very mature topics, as well as alternative culturally-based mindsets that influence the way the story is influenced by different characters. The same General Notes and Warning Tags that Apply to TTOF apply to this document as well. Consider this more like a 'Character Compendium and Universal Information' Hub. When I talk about something particularly hard, I will do the best I can to give you a warning ahead of schedule. I started us off on a lighter tone - even with the Preface you are going to be reading.

**Preface  
** _Untangling the Threads Explained_

Greetings and Salutations, dear readers, I am Morrigu Raven and this is Untangling the Threads Explained; this little compendium of sorts if a companion piece for the Tangled Threads of Fate series. This series is going to have a lot of interesting content, with some deep storylines that might seem like they get cut off – but really were intended to pick up again at a later time, but it also has a large variety of interesting and unique ‘headcanon’ takes that I have.

That is why I made ‘Untangling the Threads’ – as it is intended to help you get a little inside knowledge on different parts of the series and how it works.

This fanfiction originally started because of the Yu Yu Hakusho Big Bang 2020 Event; of which Book Zero is part of the collection; this fanfiction is one of several ‘alt-Maya’ headcanons I have that I have explored within my own mind for nearly two decades. I have been a hardcore fan of Maya, and her relationship with Kurama, since I first discovered her – and have always had a love of imagining what her life _might_ have been having she been written more.

I wish to explain at this time that I am intending this series to be Maya-centric, she is one of the characters with one of the lowest levels of positive content attached to them. It is not often you find anything tagged with her, and often most people are even unaware that she even _existed_. I found this to be a shame, as I enjoyed the spunky sweet child that I saw and the way she was attached to a boy that was displaced within his own mind – in more than one way.

I am a writer that loves to involve others in a deep world, ripe with a variety of stories that are both obvious and subtle in their natures. I really look forward to sharing more with you all in the future. Untangling the Threads will continue, later, with the first main post that will exist for this compendium will be detailing the Head Canon that exists within this specific YYH Universe I am writing for all of you.

As a side note! For my readers and people who may view the things I produce here, please leave any comments or feedback you like! In the future, there will be something released for all Tangled Threads Readers and fans! I hope to hear from all of you in one way or another, and you can also ask questions that I will try to answer whenever I make a new piece of the Compendium! I might even run special ‘Q&A’ events, depending on reader interests!

Thank you, so much, for all of the wonderful support and care that has been given to me over all the years I have been working up the confidence to reach this point. I hope you enjoy the story I wish to share with all of you.

From the ever-watchful Raven


	2. Head Canon for Tangled Threads of Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How the threads became tangled - This is the place where I talk about my headcanon, and also answer a few questions I got very regularly about my Maya. I will be including more chapters in the future, that include deeper insides on my Headcanon musings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to answer a bit about the Headcanon that went into the creation of this story, of the way I perceive Maya, and how I see her connection to others in the story. There will be blurbs for her connections to others, and there will even be character details posted in the future. I am going to see where this goes, and see how the fans like what comes out! This Chapter mostly has some glossing over of traumatic things, it's not really intentionally graphic or triggering - or at least not intended to be so (If someone thinks a warning tag may be needed please feel free to let me know! I will try to be accommodating!)

**Head Canon for Tangled Threads of Fate  
** _How the threads tangled_

Greetings, I am Morrigu Raven, and I will be your guide in this interesting journey we are about to undergo. I should probably open this with the fact that I have had a long time to tweak and adjust my headcanon for Maya; and the various versions of her. I love this character, and it’s really hard for me to find a connection to characters the way some other fans of a series might have. More than a decade and a half ago – a little nerd fledgling in a PNW High School Library – was given the exact chapters that contained the contents of the manga chapter ‘Two Shots’. Instantly, this fledgling was intensely interested.

When I was in High School, I used to write as my means of escape. I have been online writing, for over twenty years, and I have spent a long time cultivating how my writing comes from the ideas I create over time. Fandoms, fanfiction, roleplay, it was all something I found great solace and retreat in. It was a coping mechanism that was quite useful for helping me find ways to be creative. Some people in my life know that I _desperately_ have wished for the ability to produce art in a manner that creates pictures for my characters; some people in my life also know that I have _zero_ capability of making character art, but I excel at a few things that bring me joy.

So, how will Tangled Threads of Fate fit into all this? One of the earliest versions of Maya that I built was one of the two potential character presentations. The Primary is one that was the granddaughter of powerful Demon Hunters, from the Time of Genkai, this primary version of Maya is generally split into two – The path of Chaos and the Path of Fate.

The Maya you are all being presented is the Maya that is aligned with the Path of Fate, within the heritage she holds. This is the version with a highly immersive, influenced by various cultural sources, and has a lot of intense topics.

The Path of Chaos is the version of Maya that I most often roleplay as but may or may not produce a Series for in the future. The Path of Chaos Maya is essentially a very powerful psychic, who is the granddaughter of Demon hunters, but they pass away when she is younger.

The Path of Fate Maya is always, and will always, be a Miko of sorts. This version is one that was developed from the concept of ‘synchronicity’. This is based on my belief in the concept of soul resonance that exists in the YYH world, many times in Canon they show us instances of the power a soul and the way it can manifest can change the world.

This Maya, the Path of Fate Maya, is a young woman who grew up in a time period were being the way she was made her a freak in the eyes of many classmates, a lot of her life was about how _different_ she was, and how different she was compared to _other_ children. She lived a childhood of subtle neglect, emotional abuse, and a consistent basis of being reminded that the only good she could do for her family was to get to a good college and get a good job. Then, she was to marry someone chosen by her father and mother, or she could marry someone she had found in her college time.

As a Psychology Major, in real life, this sort of mentality has been an intense focus of a lot of my studies, the concept of how the influences of our youth can paint the adults we become, and how the challenges we face can be roadblocks or triumphs all depending on our perception. I wanted to paint a story that sat ‘Canon adjacent’ and told my own take on the journey of a young woman after such a major event happened in her life.

Maya did not forget her love for him, as I do not believe that is something you can force someone to forget. Maya, was Fourteen, at the Time of Two Shots, but was not as developed as other young females in their Prep class. At Fourteen Maya was preparing for High School Entrance exams at Fifteen, which is very important for the future of many youths in the location where YYH is supposed to be based in. She is underdeveloped physically, even being shorter and more petite than her classmates.

The way she is attached to Kurama is not just a simple ‘tag along’ – the Body language, the speech patterns, in fact, the very relaxed air, that Maya shows with Shuuichi – even to the point of admitting she loved him, and that she was glad she could see the same things as her, was something sweet and pure. She genuinely cared about him and had been around him for a while by that point, at least a few years, just the ease of which she follows him and talks to him – is in part how I came to realize the closeness that she felt towards him and that he was only just starting to accept when the events of Two Shots happened.

The fact that he left her life immediately after, is something that I could not get over – whenever I thought about their past. I have learned more, and knew back then, that someone experiencing something like that; the loss of a childhood friend, your first love, and then finding out later on (a few years later) that nothing was as it seems, these things would all lead to a complicated psychological development.

She – during the years without her memories – would wonder as to why her best friend had suddenly shut her out. What had happened during the time she could not remember? We often overlook something as simple as memory, but imagine that it might just be one of the most horrifying things we can attach our thoughts and emotions to… Memories are both good and bad, and forgetting something can be good or bad…

But what… if what you forgot was so bad that forgetting was a relief, while also simultaneously being absolutely terrifying for the growing and changing young woman. She is smart enough to understand that whatever happened was so horrible that she cannot remember what happened when she was kidnapped by Yatsude.

Now, let’s do some Q&A stuff towards the basic universe headcanon:  
  


  
**Question 1:** _Why did you have Maya get her memories back during Chapter Black?_

So, this is an important question, as it is one that does need to be addressed. My decision to have her loss of memory cause a huge development in her psychologically, the fracturing of her relationship with Shuuichi, and then the realization of the truths she had forgotten, was something that came from the desire to show how our experiences can change how we interact with others. Not only can they change how we interact with others, but they can change how we interact with things we had left behind us when we were incapable of handling them at a previous time.

Maya has always, will always, be intended as a character that will try to rise above her challenges, even when she feels like she wants to shatter. I wanted to present a female that could stand on her own, without _needing_ to have that ‘Prince’ that comes to sweep her up.

The significance of the Chapter Black Saga being the Catalyst for her memories is simple, Maya – in Tangled Threads of Fate – is a character that was born to a Miko and Hunter Heritage. She was raised, embroiled, and steeped in magic and the spiritual world since the moment she could open her eyes. It is why, I believe, she so easily attached to Shuuichi and was so protective of him.

It is also why, when faced with the strange and bizarre she finds how to get around it, using wile and wit to her advantage. In Chapter Black a rip in the fabric of the world was created, more than that, during Chapter Black was when _all_ psychics, nearby especially, happened to swamped with a powerful awakening.

Maya did not need a psychic awakening, as she had already been manifesting powers much earlier – her psychic abilities were not so much awakened – as her connection to the land that the Inari Shrine is tied to was suddenly at risk. She is essentially a Miko that is chosen as a manifestation of the Will of a specific force of nature, these are Miko mentioned in Japanese culture, and ones that often interacted with all sorts of mythical things.

**Question 2:** _Why did you do a Canon Adjacent, instead of an AU timeline?_

Ah! I love this question, and this is a simple answer. I wanted to tell the story of Maya after the events of what happened with Yatsude, Hiei, and Shuuichi/Kurama. I wanted a story that could tell _her_ story, without needing to be directly involved in the YYH Canon storyline. It is why events in _their_ timeline impact her timeline directly, but her timeline does not generally have any direct impact of referencing to the Canon Timeline created in the manga and anime.

Maya’s story is her own, and it is something that will grow as she does. Her story intersects with many others, and it is something I wanted to play with. I have always had a concept of Reincarnation playing a part in what Maya is, why she drew a Kitsune so easily, and many other questions.

I also wanted something that had a more mature cast, set after the end of the series, as to give a chance for events in later teen years to help mature the cast a bit more overall. I have a distinct aversion to actively writing _explicitly_ adult content when a minor character is present. I am all in support of youthful explorations, but as it currently stands, I sort of have a more specific approach to how I want to share this story.

**Question 3:** _Why does Book Zero End without having a ‘Boss Battle’?_

The decision to not culminate the fanfiction with a fight against their foe is because this Foe is one, they are going to be facing for a _long_ time. If you are a fan of older anime, consider a certain character to be more akin to a ‘Naraku’ type of character. He will be using lackeys, constantly, before he really gets in tangles with Maya head-to-head.

I also wanted to build on the tension with the Prophecy issues, as well as the issues building with the issues broiling within the Makai. The story overall, in Book Zero, was more of a precursor of explanation to give you all a standing leg, and test the waters of the fandom, in what is about to happen in Book One: Makai Trials, there is a lot of interesting things about to start kicking off, and I need to stress that my readers really need to come to understand that there is a reason I have included such Chaotic entities as the Fae within my story. _Nothing_ in this story is ever as it seems, even when it is presented as exactly what it is meant to be presented as.

**Question 4:** _When is Book One set to release?_

_  
_Book One: Makai Trials is still in the planning stages, there will be updates in the future as to when this will release, but I can assure you that you will not begin to see chapters for Book one till at least the middle of February. I want to have enough time to go over what I am creating, as well as connect with my Beta Readers about their thoughts on the content. I want to have several chapters written, ready to go, by the time I start releasing them. My goal is to get ahead on several stories so that I can focus on other facets of writing – like piecing out the potential of starting my own Book Series (Or even a Comic/Webcomic based on if I can find and an artist interested in such with me. Been talking over a few things with people but waiting for a few other things to come to fruition first! <3 Stay tuned!)

**_~Closing Author’s Blurb~_ **

**_  
_**I would like to end this with a thank you, to all of the many people who made this even become a possibility. It has taken a long time for me to reach this point, after this point, any comments made in this chapter will be added to the next time I do a Q &A. I intend to release several pieces in the coming weeks, expect there to be at least one Story-based chapter a week, and at least one major Compendium post a week. There will be one major Q&A session done at least once a month. Please stay connected and feel free to leave any questions you might have within the comments of this chapter!  
  
 _Until we cross paths again._

_A diligent Raven_


	3. Pairings?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Morri Does Pairings - This chapter helps give you a heads up on how I handle things for the series, and what I hope to show. I do intend on being diverse in what is revealed to you, but I ask for patience as the story and relationships will evolve over time just as much as the characters themselves change when they grow.

**Pairings?  
** _How Morri Deals with Pairings_

How Pairings in TTOF are Handled:  
  


I am just going to get this out of the way now, and make sure I clear the air on a few things. There is no confirmed absolute future pairing for Maya, for a reason. I want you the readers, to experience her journey – whether romantic or otherwise. The challenges we face, the people we love and cherish, the people we feel connections to, all of these are part of the recipe that creates the way Maya will build her interpersonal relationships.

Maya will _always_ love Kurama, and part of her may very well _always_ be in love with him. Maya will also experience different forms of attachment in her life, or even different forms of interaction with others. She may seem odd to some who are reading this story, but when you take into consideration the influences that are slowly becoming evident as the story unfolds.

The person we become, Maya comes to find, is built off of the little pieces of you that were permanently branded with those that had left and impression on you. Good, Bad, the painful and the sweet… These were all parts of what made Maya become who she is when we enter into the story of Book One: Makai Trials, as that is when we are going to be slipping into some of the meat of things.

You probably noticed that the story does not really seem to get super graphic in sexual content, though it is adult in nature. There is a variety of reactions from characters, and you should be aware that while there are moments of specific adult content, there will never be a primary focus on sexual gratification being a focal point of the story. The main focus of the story is the overarching complicated interactions that we all have with he world around us.

Maya has leanings towards Kurama, and there is also leanings towards Kuronue. How that plays out will all be based on things further down the road in the story. There are many things that still need to be revealed, and there will be moments where you will think you understand how a relationship is working between someone – and then you will end up shocked by how outrageously jarring a sudden change in character chemistry can occur.

Maya is more than just Maya; she is in the lifespan where the memories of more than just the Mugen blossom – but her _soul_ cycle and the history she has experienced in each of her lifetimes. Maya is going to be going through a complicated journey, half riddled with familiar faces – and some that vaguely seem like what you think they are – but as this story will show you, appearances can be deceiving.

As a confirmed understanding, this story has a few confirmed ‘pairings’ for the ‘ships’ to sail. Yukina and Kuwabara, this is confirmed – locked in place. Sachiko and Koichi, Shiori and Kazuya (Her Second Husband), Yuusuke and Keiko – The history of how they fixed their shit will be revealed in Snippets and Snags during a few side ficlets there. There are also Mr. and Mrs. Yukimura, and Hiei and Mukuro are confirmed as a couple. As a note, several of the demons, and some of the human couples, and mixed pairings, have a more relaxed stance on sex outside of their partnership. In fact, you will see _very_ little monogamy in the series outside of human based cultures. Siya and Ren are also a confirmed couple, with a flirtation of a potential semi-romantic union with Maya that would produce young for Siya and Ren to raise.

I will make it clear that while I am not against fan theorizations on what pairings may manifest, I will be keeping a general eye on what people talk about – that is based _purely_ off of what is written and seen within the actual written universe, as I want you to build your theories off of what is written here instead of just what you know from the Canon.

I also want to stress that I really want to make sure that I have a variety of relationships, I want the story to not just be about who you love romantically – but the power that love of any form can bring to the darkest of moments. Love, has a power that can outshine any dark spell, any decrepit monstrosity. Throughout the Canon of YYH, and many other series of a similar nature, and through the universe I share through Tangled Threads of Fate, you see examples of the different types of love can keep you strong in the darkest of hours. I will try to show the variety of what can be found within a universe with such a wide variety of varying cultures and people.

**The chances are I will release a monthly fanbased Compendium Update - about the most common theories from fans. I plan on responding with some of my thoughts to some thing’s fans have theorized, and I want to try to be more interactive with the community of readers I hope to build. The date for this monthly compendium update will be decided later and will be a bit of a process to get going at the start, as I need to make sure that I can sync it properly with a good time period to gather all of the details from a specific calendar period, and then release after compiling everything for final editing.**

_As a Closing note, it is very likely I may release some ‘gift’ content from time to time. This gift content may be based on request from readers, or people from the original crew that helped make everything possible, and the gift content might even be something I write on a whim and gift to one of the people who has inspired me. I appreciate every individual that has helped me on my journey, and because of you I can create something like this._

So, uh… Yeah, this is how Morrigu does Pairings?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---As a Note: It will be a bit before there is another Compendium post. I will be releasing some story-based content in the next week, and I will also be working more on preparing for Book One of the Series to release with its opening. I also just started another Term of my Uni degree, and it's been a bit of a rough start with everything that happened in a short period (both good and bad) and I'm just recovering. I also plan on the next chapter being extremely thorough on answering some details of a nature that many people were interested in the process of me writing and building up to release this Fanfiction series.
> 
> To give you a little tidbit, the next chapter will be called:
> 
> Youkai 101: "Demons are not Humans"
> 
> And it may or may not get graphic in some parts, depending on the content I intend to include in the first chapter. I'm going to gauge how much I want to release, based on what I get as feedback! I can't wait to hear from all of you, be safe!


End file.
